


One Pretty Song

by NiceTinCan



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Community: twd_kinkmeme, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Infidelity, Kink Meme, M/M, Seduction, Top Rick, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-07 01:24:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5438315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NiceTinCan/pseuds/NiceTinCan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a collection of words Rick stores in his head, anything that might give a shock to his conscience. Inappropriate, illegal, disgusting, shameful, weak, careless, <i>sinful</i>. Sinful, like his mama had loved saying.</p><p>Why is he being led into temptation? Why did Shane have to happen?</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Pretty Song

“Carl was good?” Rick asks over the exchange of money—and this is just the worst part, because when Shane takes the money from him and their fingers brush sometimes, and Shane’s looking up at him and smiling easily, Rick’s face heats. It’s almost too easy to think he’s paying Shane for something other than looking after Carl for a few hours.

Shane pockets the fifty. “You bet he was. Little man went right ahead and took a nap after I tired him out with some t-ball. Uh, looks like he didn’t have any homework that needed to be done.”

Rick chuckles. “He ain’t usin his allowance as hush money is he?”

Shane holds up his hands. “No. Officer Grimes, come on. Do I need to show my license and registration again? I thought I was straight with the law.”

“Well, you were, but I’m gonna have to take you in for aidin and abettin a known criminal. Carl Grimes?”

Shane steals Rick’s hat from his hand and places it atop his head with the brim low. “Never heard of him, officer. What’s he wanted for?”

“I’m askin the questions here, Mister.”

“Un-uh, I’m remainin silent.”

Rick smiles and scoffs. Shane is such a relief from Lori and her silence and looks. “That hat’s a good look on you.”

“S’it?”

“Yeah. It looks real nice.”

Shane tips it up and his brown eyes are visible again. He reaches out and pushes a finger at Rick’s badge. “I really want one of those. It’s neat.”

“Eh, maybe you’ll have one someday. If you quit your life of crime.”

“Nope. S’all I ever known.” Shane takes the hat off. It’s left his black mess of hair trampled down in some places and sticking straight out in others.

Rick looks at it, and he’s suddenly a little reckless. “You don’t have school tomorrow. You wanna stay for dinner?”

“All right,” Shane says. He’s got his head ducked and he’s looking up at Rick from under his brows with a small smile. “What’s Mrs. Grimes makin?”

“What do you like?”

“Carl and me had some of that leftover Brunswick stew in the fridge. Be nice to taste the fresh version.”

“You got it.”

Rick lets Lori know—gets a pinched response and pans banging down onto the counter a little too hard; she doesn’t really care for Shane and he doesn’t know why—then goes to change out of his uniform into the clothes Lori’s always said he looks best in.

Rick combs his hair and thinks about what he’s doing. He’s giving in to this inappropriate, persistent _monster_ that took up residence in his head last month when him and Lori needed a babysitter and Shane, Carl’s partner in the first grade-tenth grade buddy program had been at their door, chewing gum and assuring them that he’d look after Carl while they were out.

The only reason they needed a babysitter was because Rick wanted to try and reconnect with his wife by getting her out of the house to do something together. And now he’s got a whole other problem.

Rick fingers the cap on the cologne Lori got him for Christmas but decides against it. The clothes could already be enough to make her wonder.

Carl’s at the table when Rick comes downstairs, sleepily rubbing his eyes. “I got him up to eat,” Lori says at the stove. “He shouldn’t really be sleeping before his bedtime, Rick. Then it’s hard for him to keep his schedule.”

Shane’s beside Carl, hands folded on the table. He looks at Rick, color flashing in his cheeks. “Oh. M’sorry, Mrs. Grimes. He was sorta tired after we played t-ball.”

“It was so fun, though,” Carl pipes in. “I hit a ball all the way over the fence and Shane had to go get it!”

Shane snorts a laugh. “Little man, I think you did that more than once.”

Rick takes a seat across from him, and doesn’t miss the way Shane looks up at him and takes him in.

“You look damn spiffy, Mr. Grimes.”

At Shane’s comment Lori turns to look herself. Rick smiles at her and Lori’s lip quirks, at least. But she frowns too.

Brunswick stew comes a half-hour later over idle conversation. Then Shane mentions something about a pinewood derby at Carl’s school and Carl takes off about his entry; a speedy style with white and blue paint, like Dad’s police car, he says.

“How old are you again, Shane?” Lori asks before a sip of wine.

“Fifteen.”

“Hm. You play sports?”

“Yeah, football. I’m on varsity this year.”

“That’s great. I guess you take some hits, huh? I just saw that bruise on your arm and wondered what happened.”

Shane nods. “Yep. Emery’s the biggest dude on the team and he got me good.”

Lori’s eyes catch Rick’s a moment. Shane looks back at his bowl and shifts.

“Oh yeah,” Rick says, “did you need to tell your daddy that you’re here?”

“Um,” Shane trails off. He looks at the tablecloth. “That’s all right. He knows what I’m doing and he’s probably uh, in bed by now.”

“Is he a cop too?” Carl asks.

“Uh, no, well he’s uh.” Shane picks up his spoon again and sifts through the stew. “He’s unemployed right now.”

Shane’s looking increasingly uncomfortable and Rick’s very worried and very guilty. Shane is fifteen, and last week Rick saw a different bruise blooming up under his collar.

When dinner’s over and Shane’s working up to leave, Rick pulls him away from the din of Lori and Carl doing the dishes. “Is everything okay at home, Shane?”

Shane mimics his posture, saddles his hands on his hips and tips forward on his feet. “Uh, I don’t wanna talk about that, Mr. Grimes. It ain’t the best, but... Don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Somethin can be done,” Rick offers.

Shane shakes his head. “There’s nothin wrong.” He runs a hand through his thick hair, and looks Rick up and down again. “You do look real nice. Like to see you out of that uniform more often.”

Rick’s eyes widen.

Shane touches his hair again and chuckles. “Um, well, think I gotta go,” he says to his tennis shoes.

Carl runs into the room and smushes his face into Shane’s side. “No! You should stay over tonight. Please?”

“ _Rick_ ,” Lori threatens from the kitchen.

No, Shane staying over would not be a good idea at all. Rick sighs, “Carl, tonight ain’t the best for a sleepover. Now say good night to Shane and get on up to bed.”

Carl groans. He wraps his arms tight around Shane’s waist. “G’night, Shane.” 

Shane accepts his hug, squeezing him and lifting him off his feet with an exaggerated grunt of exertion while Carl giggles.

Carl gets in a last snotty pout in Lori’s direction before he shoots up the stairs.

“Can I get a hug, too?” Shane asks, a low funny murmur because, Rick thinks, he doesn’t want Lori to hear.

Since Rick is only a reckless man nowadays, he gives in and wraps his arms around Shane.

Shane is young and warm in his arms. The dark hair that brushes Rick’s chin smells like eucalyptus.

Rick doesn’t let it last more than an acceptable moment, but Christ he wants to hold on.

\--

Rick can’t _do_ this anymore.

He’s even uncomfortable at work. Putting people behind bars when he frequently thinks about what a fifteen year old would feel like under him just seems like there is no real justice in the world.

There’s a collection of words Rick stores in his head, anything that might give a shock to his conscience. Inappropriate, illegal, disgusting, shameful, weak, careless, _sinful_. Sinful, like his mama had loved saying.

Why is he being led into temptation? Why did Shane have to happen?

All the teenagers Rick’s caught shoplifting or drunk and taken home to mama and daddy, he’s never looked at any of them the way he’s come to be _obsessed_ with Shane.

There’s too much at stake; his job, marriage, his son. Shit, his soul, even if Rick doesn’t believe in God, he can’t see this going without some kind of punishment.

Rick thinks about just having a clean break and finding a new babysitter for Carl, but that’s too much, and it’s almost a personal failure—he has to cast aside a perfectly fine babysitter because he can’t get control of himself?

And he can’t fight Carl, Carl who wants Shane to come over more and more. In a bizarre way, Carl shows in his blatant affection and longing everything Rick isn’t allowed to.

And so, Shane is around Rick all the more often, and every time Rick sees his easy smile what might’ve ( _was_! the monster insists) been a proposition snakes through Rick’s head: _Like to see you out of that uniform more often_.

A wretched thing to say to a weak man.

Rick can pass off lustful looks and too-much touching as a sick delusion of his own mind, but actual words from Shane’s lips are much harder.

Alcohol, a bit, dulls him down. Gets him to stop obsessing in circles at least. He’s never drank much, never had need and therefore never saw the benefit, but now he’s got Problems.

What Shane’s caused, he may never know.

“You seen this one?”

Shane holds up a DVD. Rick can’t make out the title in the vomit of colors. “I ain’t really one for movies. Lori buys those.”

“Why?”

Rick sighs and plucks at his curls with the hand bent over his head. “In case,” he tries to explain, and maybe Shane understands.

The DVDs no one watches are just like the pictures no one looks at. Rick’s always had a hurting sense that little useless things like that are Lori’s way of keeping the air in a deflating balloon.

Shane’s knelt over as he browses the collection of movies beneath their TV. Rick can see the valley between his shoulder blades, the long, sinewy line of his back, and a gap of skin tanned by the Georgia sun where his shirt’s rode up.

Rick looks away. It’s easier with the alcohol, and he brings the can up again for another helping. He’d leave the living room entirely, but that’d admit defeat. Rick doesn’t want to be a flimsy excuse of a man.

Rick gets another beer when he needs it. Lori gone’s grocery shopping, and Carl’s in the kitchen, on the phone with his grandmama. He smiles happily at Rick when he passes by, and Rick smiles back, but he feels it’s unstable with guilt.

“Lori’ll be gone all next week,” Rick tells Shane after he’s resumed his seat. He cracks open the beer. “Takin Carl with her up to her mama’s.”

Shane looks at him over his shoulder. The pose is oddly inviting. “Why’s that?”

Rick shakes his head and shrugs.

Shane’s eyes flick to the beer, and back around. “I guess you have problems, huh.”

“That’s a word for it.”

Shane gets up and comes over to the couch. Rick squirms inside and nurses at his beer.

“M’sorry ‘bout that, Mr. Grimes,” Shane says. 

His warmth, his body is just a couple inches away. Rick stares straight ahead.

“Maybe you just needta open up and talk things out with her.”

Rick chuckles. No, it’s best he keeps his mouth shut.

“This drinkin you been doin ain’t helpin things.”

Shane reaches for the can and takes it away.

Rick tries to look reproachful, but Shane, mean and unrighteous Shane, takes the can to his own mouth.

Rick’s insides twist even as he half-heartedly grabs at air and chides, “Hey.”

Shane licks his lips after a long swallow, his brown eyes staring dead-on into Rick’s.

“It it good?” Rick fumbles out.

“S’better than my daddy’s.”

“Does he hit you?”

Shane looks at him. The can crinkles under the squeeze of his fingers.

Rick didn’t expect that question to leave his own lips, and in the aftermath he’s almost ashamed of himself, but he doesn’t look away. Now’s as good a time as any.

“Why you askin that?” Shane finishes off the beer. He’s not looking at Rick now, somewhere over him. Empty can crushed in his lap. He looks hurt. “Why you gotta bring that up?”

Rick covers a hiccup behind his hand. “‘Cause I could help you.”

Something terrible and hot roils in Shane’s eyes. Rick sees there the same recklessness that plagues himself.

“You could help me,” Shane echoes, and he reaches over and puts his hand on Rick’s thigh.

Rick shoots up. He looks at Shane a second, heaving in breath, before he gestures violently with his arm and shouts, “Get _out_!”

His voice thundercracks through the house and Shane cringes, flies out of his seat.

Rick hears the phone clatter and Carl dashes in. “Dad!” he cries even as he runs towards Shane.

“I gotta go,” Shane mumbles on his way out the door. He pushes Carl away from him and then he’s gone.

His footsteps sound off the porch. Then silence fills the room.

Carl’s face is twisted up when he turns to Rick. “Why’d you yell at him for!”

“I had to,” Rick says numbly. “Carl, just—just go on up to your room, okay? For a little bit. We can talk about this later.”

“ _I don’t wanna talk_!” Carl screams. He rushes up the stairs and Rick hears his door slam, then a dim cry.

Rick collapses on the couch, in a stupor unrelated to alcohol.

He still feels Shane’s warm hand on his thigh and still smells his body spray lingering around him.

He had yelled with only half a conscious mind. The instinct to protect himself had ignited and burned away everything else.

Shane had brought his darkness into light, and Rick had to act like it wasn’t his.

\--

Lori ends up having that talk with Carl. She asks Rick that night why he got so pissed and he says he doesn’t know and that he’s tired.

“I’m worried, Rick. I think you need to stop drinking. God, you really scared Carl.”

“This has nothing to do with him.”

“Shane either? Is it me then?”

“No, it’s _not_ ,” Rick asserts. “It’s my problem. Just mine.”

“Well, what’s wrong?”

Lori says it so helplessly Rick feels a swell of sadness. He blinks several times and slings his arm over his eyes. “No use sayin what’s wrong ‘cause there ain’t no way to fix it.”

Rick’s talking about his own perverted thoughts but he’s also talking about the state of things, the lack thereof, between him and Lori and that’s what she picks up on.

“Rick, you never talk. You never _share_. I don’t know if it’s work, or something... I just thought things would be different. After we had Carl. I mean, sometimes I wonder if you even care about us at all.”

“Don’t... say that,” Rick whispers, weak. “God, Lori, don’t say that kinda thing. How can you think that?”

“I don’t know.” Lori’s crying now. “It’s even worse lately. You’re so distant. And the drinking.”

“I’ll stop.”

“Will you? Would that even _help_ anything?”

“Lori...”

“I don’t want to lose you and I feel like I am... I feel like I _am_ , Rick. I feel like something is stealing you away from us.”

“Nothin is.” Rick soothes her hair and holds her on his chest. “Don’t talk like that. Listen, while you’re at your mama’s I’m gonna figure some things out. I promise it’ll be different soon.”

Lori inhales wetly. “I really hope so, Rick. Maybe we just, you know, need that time apart?”

“That’s s’all it is. And I’ll talk to Carl before you two leave. I don’t want him thinkin this is all his fault.”

Lori nods. “Okay then. I, just. I worry about him too. He can be just like you.”

And maybe that hurts more than anything.

\--

Rick hasn’t seen Shane since he shouted him out of the house.

Lori leaves with Carl and Rick comes home to an empty house for the first time in years after work on Monday.

He drops his keys and jacket, drops junk mail in the trash then takes out the garbage.

While he’s microwaving breakfast leftovers he muses that while quiet and lonely, he feels almost a little bit better without Lori and Carl around. He’s got a sickness in his mind, and being in proximity to the clean healthy people his wife and son are, he’s felt like a walking disease.

Rick skips alcohol for coffee, and it’s not until he’s seated at the table, eating strips of bacon, that he starts to think of Shane.

Rick doesn’t force those thoughts away, in fact, it’s almost gluttonous the way he just steeps himself in them. The cat’s away and he’s the mouse scurrying to all the breadcrumbs he can find and stuffing himself silly.

He’s aware of how his pants tighten and the dimming taste of food in his mouth, his eyes taking in nothing in favor of his mental lens that can picture every dirty thing.

It’s wicked how a brain can make an illusion so real; the real world takes a back seat and Rick can feel Shane’s body against his, the texture of his hair under his palm. He can look into the exact shade of Shane’s eyes, as blinking and alive as when Rick saw him last.

Rick’s brain can sweeten the fantasy by adding in gasps and moans and Shane’s smell, a scent that always flavors the air when he’s around and stays a few deep breaths when he’s gone.

The world fades back in when Rick’s roused by the sound of his fork hitting his empty plate. He seethes a breath through his teeth and presses the heel of his hand down against his pounding cock.

No Lori, no Carl, no one.

Rick could pop his fly right now and take his cock in his hand and moan Shane’s name if he wanted to. He’s never done that before, hadn’t even thought of him when he made love to his wife.

He’s held out long enough to earn this at least. Some kind of release, even if it’ll tighten the cuffs Shane’s locked him in.

Not here though. He does it here and he won’t be able to sit at the table anymore without thinking about it.

Rick drops his plate in the sink and heads upstairs. The bedroom’s more neutral ground, maybe the bathroom. Rick’s jerked off to enough wayward fantasies in there that adding Shane to the list couldn’t sully it that much more.

Rick pushes open a door he swore he shut this morning.

“‘Bout time,” he hears, and then sees a feast of flesh spread out on the bed.

The sight catches him and spears him right through. Rick locks up even as he wants to run and run and run.

Shane’s eyes, eyes of a dirty wicked kind, meet his and Rick falls back against the door, shutting himself inside with the boy that for no reason at all, wants to drag him down to where he’ll burn and burn and burn.

“I thought we might as well just get down to it,” Shane says. “M’tired of the game you been tryin to play.”

Rick tightens his hands into fists, feeling his own beating heart pulse in them and _doesn’t look_. “Go put your clothes on.”

“Aw, you don’t really want that do ya? Why don’t you look?”

“No, I will _not_.”

Rick hears the mattress creak, and then a length of tan legs cross into his vision.

“What you scared of?” Shane asks, unbearably close now, Rick leaning back on the door to get away. “Lori’s gone ain’t she? Carl too.”

“Get out,” Rick says, and this time it’s weak and shaky without even a pretend conviction to stand on.

Shane laughs. “What’s wrong with you? Huh? Don’t act all shy now. I seen the way you look at me, and those looks wasn’t even a little shy, Mr. Grimes.”

Rick squeezes his eyes shut, then brings them to Shane’s face in saccades that snapshot the rest of his naked body too.

“There,” Shane coaxes. He picks up Rick’s wrist in a hot hand and brings Rick’s palm to the smooth center of his chest.

Shane steps back, taking Rick with him.

Rick gasps. He feels like he’s being pulled into hell. “This ain’t right.”

“S’right ‘cause I want you. Soon as I saw you I couldn’t wait for you to—”

“Shut up,” Rick wheezes. “Shane, shut up.”

In the low light Shane’s flush is deep red and his eyes are so dark Rick sees them as a devilish black.

“When you gonna quit that? You don’t gotta pretend no more. Look.” Rick feels Shane’s skin slipping under his fingers and his eyes are forced to look as Shane drags his hand down his stomach.

Shane’s body is smooth and firm and very warm and his cock is hard when Shane has Rick take it. 

They both groan.

Rick shuts his eyes. He can hear Shane’s breathing as his fingers trail up and down the shaft, thumb swiping over the head. “Don’t make me do this.”

“I ain’t makin you do nothin,” Shane laughs. “Think I am? Some kinda temptress?”

 _Yes_ , Rick thinks.

“Yeah?” Shane grips his wrist again and brings it further between his legs. It’s so hot Rick’s fingers flail and reach a very slippery place.

“Feel that?” Shane asks, up against him now, breath at Rick’s collar and Rick’s arm trapped between them. “I got all ready for you. All wet and nice.”

Rick feels suffocated. When he rubs his fingers in all that slick he can make out Shane’s hole, a point of scorching pulse. 

“Don’t,” he tells himself. But though Shane’s let go of his wrist, he can’t pull it away, and he rubs over that place again and again until fingers are aching like his cock.

Before Rick can help himself, he’s set a finger against Shane’s entrance and he’s pushed it inside.

A fiery whip of desire cracks in his body. It’s hot and slick and stubbornly tight in Shane.

Shane’s lips mouth his skin. Rick swallows. A point of no return is approaching fast.

It’s so hot and _tight_ —

“No,” Rick moans, and pulls away. He almost falls down at the strength it takes.

But Shane’s inexorably _there_ , all along his back now. “Stop,” Rick pleads, forcing himself backwards.

Shane hits the door and his teeth sink into Rick’s shoulder blade.

Shane’s hand grabs him roughly through his pants. He squeezes and drags his thumb down the hard line of Rick’s cock.

“ _Shit_.” Rick reaches for that persistent hand but when he gets it Shane is sliding his fingers under his belt and Rick doesn’t stop him.

Shane chuckles against his back, creating a hot damp sensation. “S’it gonna take?” He slides his palm up Rick’s balls and cock, a move that makes Rick rise onto his toes, before he grips it.

It’s not like when Lori touches him. Lori’s shy hand; a grip that’s soft and caring and seems to want nothing in return.

Shane’s strong hand though, Rick can feel in the urgent root-to-tip strokes Shane’s desire, that he wants Rick to _fuck_ him, that he wants Rick so deep inside of him he chokes on it.

It’s that bit of heady transference that breaks goosebumps on Rick’s body and loosens the hold he has on being a Good Man.

With a soft growl, he turns around and dips his head to taste Shane’s mouth.

Shane moans and shoves against him, his free arm wrapping around Rick’s shoulders to draw himself up. 

His hand snakes out of Rick’s zipper and he digs those fingers into Rick’s hip.

Shane is warm, solid against him and tastes like spearmint gum. There’s salt residue from whatever he ate earlier in the corners of his lips.

It’s better than Rick could’ve imagined. Especially when Shane grinds his cock against the rough front of Rick pants.

They part with a mean sound. Shane’s digging at Rick’s curls and panting. Rick tosses him up harder against the door to lick and bite down his neck.

“C’mon,” Shane says, his dick rubbing along Rick’s through layers of fabric, the door creaking, “I want you right now.”

“How?” Rick bites a piece of skin he particularly likes and lets himself touch. He squeezes Shane’s hips and ass and drags his palms up his back. “Shit, you feel good...”

“C’mere.” Shane takes Rick by his hand and separates them—and that’s almost _unbearable_ —to lead Rick to the bed.

His and Lori’s bed.

Rick’s heart rises in his throat and almost talks.

It quiets when Shane sinks down on the bed, spreading out a delinquent amount of flesh.

Rick gets behind him and touches again; Shane’s back, his thick thighs and ass, nape of his neck. 

When Rick runs fingers through Shane’s curly hair his weight shifts and he ends up buckling Shane’s upper body beneath his.

“ _Fuck_.”

“I’m s—”

“Fuck, that’s good. Hold me down.”

Rick burns hot. “Jesus,” he laughs. “Mouth on you.”

“You bet.”

Rick leans up off him, and, pushing a hand into Shane’s lower back, he rubs his fingers down again into all that slick and this time tries two.

The muscles in Shane’s back roll and flex.

Rick moves his fingers around. It feels nice. Constricting. “Lori’s never...” He says aloud maybe without meaning to.

Shane groans and hikes his ass up higher. “Shut up ‘bout your woman. Can’t wait no longer, Rick, please.”

“Me neither,” Rick decides.

His fingers are slippery from the lubricant Shane used when he undoes his belt.

Rick’s heart beats in his ears from the reality of it all. Has it always been leading to this? Was it useless to put up a fight in the first place?

“You never done this,” Rick says, rearing up on his knees.

“No,” Shane pants out. “But don’t you be easy on me.”

Everything in Rick’s head starts pouring out of its unhinged door when he puts his cock against Shane’s hole. “You’re too young,” he says, “too young and I’m sor— _ahh_.”

He’s pushing inside and can’t stop himself, can’t even remember starting.

“Oh my God,” Rick moans, tipping his head up towards the ceiling, to God as he feels what He made so forbidden. His eyes have gone blurry and there’s heaven in his veins.

Rick leans over Shane and drops in to the root, and his whole body shudders with the sensation.

Rick rubs Shane’s back and hair and teeths the nape of his neck.

When Rick pulls out, Shane makes a hurt sound and starts in protesting.

Rick pats his thigh. “Turn over,” he says, sweat boiling down his temples.

Shane does.

Soon as he’s on his back Rick grabs his thick thighs and hauls him forwards.

Shane’s breath whooshes out of him.

“Like this.”

Shane licks his lips. “Sure know what you want now, huh?”

“Shut up.” Rick lies over him and props himself up on his forearm beside Shane’s shoulder.

Shane’s open mouth pants hot air up into his.

Shane folds a leg across Rick’s back. That tips his hips up and Rick feels the hot pull of him. He holds himself steady and pushes in.

Colored lights explode behind his eyelids.

It’s better now. Now he can feel Shane’s belly clench, Shane’s stiff cock riding the low of his own stomach. When he opens his eyes he can see the flush in Shane’s face climb, his eyelids fluttering even as he struggles to keep looking up at Rick.

“Shit.” His whole body seems to turn boneless when he’s buried inside as deep as can be. His weight presses them into the bed.

Shane grunts and slings an arm around Rick’s neck. His heel digs into Rick’s spine.

“Fuckin’— _go_ ,” Shane gasps, pulling his hair.

Rick sucks in a breath and pulls out all he can bear before falling in again. The thrust rocks them both up the bedspread.

Rick lets go with a cry of relief.

He hides his face in Shane’s wet hair, strands tickling inside his open mouth. He pushes and pushes and pushes and Shane clutches at him under the force of the movement, choked little cries sounding off into Rick’s shoulder, fingers ripping over his shoulder blades.

The pleasure, urgency and debauchery is so great Rick can’t breathe and feels like he might die. His heart stampedes between them and in his ears, such a primal rush of blood and sex Rick’s growling, biting into Shane’s hair and Shane’s ear.

Shane’s grip on him falters, then clutches very hard. 

Rick eats up Shane’s loose cry and his come sprays up Rick’s belly.

Shane gets so tight Rick’s thrusts turn to rude, messy jerks.

They slip slide together. “S’right,” Shane whispers. He looks up at Rick, their eyes pinned together. “Fuck, wanna drip when you’re done. Wanted it so, _ah_ , fuckin long. I wanna be so full of it I leak it out—”

Rick’s breath stutters. He heaves forward into the clench of Shane’s body and bites him under his jaw.

His orgasm beats out of him. He sobs and his legs churn the sheets. All he has to give Shane sucks out of him.

“Oh my God,” Rick prays when it’s finally over. Tears are lining his eyes.

“ _Rick_ ,” Shane says in exultation.

It’s all Rick can do to roll off Shane onto his back. Soon as his eyes close he slips away.

\--

The best way to not get an addiction to a fifteen year old boy is to not start in the first place.

When Rick was in school, a guest speaker on the dangers of smoking had used a demonstration he’d never forget.

A length of string representing a cigarette had been dropped around the steeple of his hands. He was challenged to snap its hold with each subsequent string added. 

Two, three, four strings were broken easily. 

Five, six and seven had been a struggle.

By the eight “cigarette” Rick could not pull his hands apart. 

That was the grip of addiction. Easy as strings.

The fourth time he fucks Shane is that eighth cigarette.

Lori and Carl are home then. Rick’s forgone all alcohol and has made every concerted effort to be the husband and father they want. He makes a point to ask Lori about her day, tell her about his. Helps Carl with his homework and cooks dinner sometimes.

Still, the power of suggestion can’t be underestimated. Rick told Lori things would be fine when she came home and so they are.

The fourth time he fucks Shane comes on the 4th of July. 

Carl wants Shane to come with them to the fair so badly he promises to clean his room every day for the rest of his life.

Lori acquiesces, as long as Carl promises to vacuum as well (he does).

Carl rushes them all through three sessions on the roller coaster, a few rides in the teacups, a trip on the Ferris wheel and down the water slide before he seems to slow down.

Lori gets him a red, white and blue snow cone and pats him in the direction of a table where they’re doing face paints.

Carl gets the frog and Shane gets the spider.

Lori and Rick rest.

Lori’s saying something about the lack of nutritional food they have here and Rick’s looking at Shane as the boy keeps sliding him hot looks under the brush of black paint spreading onto his skin.

Rick looks away to Lori. “I might take Shane back around to that tower ride Carl wasn’t tall enough for. What do you think? You take him to the hay jump.”

Lori covers her mouth with her hand. “I can’t believe last time you went in there you got some hay in your...”

“Now it’ll be your turn. Let’s meet up back at the photo booth.”

Lori takes a sip of her water. “All right.”

Rick’s body zings with anticipation.

“You like it?” Shane asks when the group has split and Rick is leading Shane to somewhere that isn’t the Screamer.

The spider’s body is painted in the center of Shane’s face. Its black spindly legs fan his cheeks and forehead.

“Looks sorta silly.” Rick reaches and smears a leg with his finger.

“Hey,” Shane protests. Something catches his eye. “Hey! Look, they got caramel apples!”

Rick waits as patiently as possible while Shane gets himself one.

Soon enough, he hurries back with the confection. “Lookit that.” Shane spins the stick to show Rick all the patriotic sprinkles. He takes a bite. “Shticky,” he says around a mouthful. “Mm.”

Rick looks behind him reflexively, though Lori and Carl are likely already falling into hay.

“I know someplace we can go,” Rick says.

Shane looks up at him. “Someplace? Someplace that—” his eyes widen. A naughty crooked smirk spreads his lips. “Ride I’m tall enough for, huh?”

He licks up the apple. “Well, lead the way, Officer Grimes.”

Rick tells Shane that, while at the police academy, he had a small-time job here as a night guard. “Found all the places that you could slip into and nobody’d ever find you.”

Where he takes Shane is one of those places that, if Rick remembers, he can be back ten years ago, tipping his flashlight around the place and scanning for drug paraphernalia.

In the house of mirrors, there’s a dipping decline between mirrors six and seven that burrows under the rest of the place to a small custodial room. It’s impossible to make out there’s anything between mirrors six and seven without an outside light source and a reason to investigate.

Rick walks with Shane down the narrow hall of mirrors. 

There’s a couple kids ahead of them, oohing and ahhing at their multiple distorted reflections. 

Rick waits for them to take the corner before he ushers Shane into the thin gap between the mirrors.

“Whoa,” Shane says when he feels how the floor abruptly levels down, steadying himself against Rick.

“Go,” Rick urges him in the dark.

To be safe, he peeks between the mirrors to check the coast is clear and then brings the mirrors closer together, until only a finger’s width separates them.

Then he follows Shane down.

“Dark in here,” Shane says. “Hah, this’d be a good place to murder somebody wouldn’t it?”

“Sh,” Rick hushes. He finds Shane’s lips in the dark and licks the caramel taste off of them. “Let’s hurry up.”

The fourth time is quick and desperate. Shane mutters how he’s missed this and how hard it is to pretend around Rick’s family. There’s another bruise Rick finds that he rubs over and mouths and he tells Shane that he’ll deal with his father. In what way, he doesn’t say.

The fourth time Rick finally accepts this time won’t be the last; as sure as cigarettes there’ll be a sixth and seventh time and many more, binding his hands tight in Shane’s strings.


End file.
